2014 Summer Fellow is Invited Speaker at Food Conference

2014 Pardee Center Graduate Summer Fellow Sarah Ann Hill was an invited speaker on a panel and also presented a poster at a recent conference called “Just Food?” held at the Harvard Law School.

The conference, on March 28-29, explored the intersections between social, economic and environmental justice and the food system. Sarah spoke during a panel on climate change and agriculture. Her presentation was based on her master’s thesis, “Waste not, want not: Reducing livestock’s greenhouse emissions in the UK,” which investigates the contribution of waste and consumption levels to livestock’s climate change impact, and the policies and initiatives that are being implemented in the UK to address these issues. She also presented a poster at the conference on the same topic.

Globally, livestock is estimated to be responsible for between 14.5% and 32% of all greenhouse gas emissions. Waste and consumption are important because they represent emissions that have been accumulated throughout the supply chain, and reducing either prevents emissions from all the steps to produce that food.  In the UK 19% of all food is wasted, compared to around 40% in the US, and Britons eat the equivalent of two quarter pound burgers each per day, and Americans eat three.

In her presentation, Sarah noted that if the UK, US and Europe reduced their food waste by one quarter, this would be enough to feed all of the world’s 1 billion hungry people, and that reducing individual meat consumption by 50g (less than 2oz) per day saves the same amount of greenhouse gas as is generated by a return flight from New York to London.

Much of the research included in Sarah’s presentation and talk was conducted during her 2014 Pardee Summer Fellowship. She completed her master’s degree in International Relations and Environmental Policy at Boston University in December 2014.